Tribal Coalition Predicted Zinke Would be Trump’s Interior Secretary Last May

BILLINGS, MONTANA – “Where the hell is he, my man!” then presidential candidate Donald Trump hollered as he took the stage for a rally in Billings, Montana, last May. Now the American people know: if the President-elect gets his way, his “man,” Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana, will be at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, DC, at the head of the Department of the Interior. Shortly after that rally, GOAL Tribal Coalition predicted Zinke would hold high office in a Trump administration, with Interior his likely landing spot. GOAL, which remains one of the largest tribal coalitions in North America, is the force behind the campaign to keep the sacred grizzly bear out of trophy hunters gun sights, and to protect the ancestral tribal lands the grizzly presently occupies from an initial 28 mines identified by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in the rule it is about to approve that will remove the grizzly in Greater Yellowstone from the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Don Shoulderblade

Following the emergence of what GOAL described as the “Zinke-Trump alliance,” the tribal coalition went on the offensive and after a widely reproduced editorial by the organization’s chairman, David Bearshield, Montana governor Steve Bullock wrote to GOAL’s founder, Don Shoulderblade. In his letter, Governor Bullock tried to justify his alignment with Zinke on the issue, but added that delisting “does not mean the state will initiate a grizzly bear hunting season.” With a trophy hunter from Montana about to run Interior, the governor’s claim appears as threatened as the bear. Zinke has championed the delisting and trophy hunting of the grizzly in direct opposition to every tribe in the state, either through resolutions, or being signatories to the historic “grizzly treaty.” Should Zinke be confirmed, Bullock will select his interim replacement in Congress from three nominees tabled by Republicans, before a special election is held.

“Ryan Zinke has a dismal 3 percent lifetime environmental voting record. His brief political career has been substantially devoted to attacking endangered species and the Endangered Species Act. He led efforts to strip federal protections for endangered wolves, lynx and sage grouse, voted to exempt massive agribusiness and water developers from Endangered Species Act limitations, and opposed efforts to crack down on the international black market ivory trade,” says Kierán Suckling, Executive Director of the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). Suckling is referring to the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act. Under the “SHARE Act,” Zinke supports aerial gunning, the baiting of grizzly bears and denning wolves on national wildlife refuges in Alaska, hunting with hounds, and the use of steel-jawed leg traps. Under SHARE, “sportsmen” are able to import a limited number of polar bear carcasses and ivory from African elephants. Zinke, described by the NRA as an “avid” trophy hunter, has introduced legislation to “block threats from anti-hunting groups” that seek to limit hunting on federal lands, and when previously running for Lieutenant Governor, went on record to say that in respect to wildlife management, he took his lead from “ranchers and hunting guides across the state.”

“This is not a hunting issue, it is a killing issue,” explains Shoulderblade of the consequences of grizzly delisting. “We come from a subsistence culture, where there is ceremony and great respect accorded those beings you ask to offer their lives so that you might live. That is what you call a hunting tradition, not a killing tradition,” clarifies the Cheyenne Sun Dance Priest.

“The grizzly is sacred, our grandparent, not a ‘trophy game animal,’” he adds. Zinke was a high-profile attendee at this year’s Safari Club International convention in Las Vegas, the largest annual gathering of trophy hunters in the world. Sources report that Zinke replaced Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers as Trump’s pick for Interior after Don Trump, Jr., a fellow trophy hunter, met with Zinke and then lobbied for Montana’s congressman, who goes by “Commander Zinke.”

A former Navy SEAL, Zinke was once widely criticized in Montana’s press for fundraising emails that suggested he played a role in the killing of Osama bin Laden. Zinke had retired from the military three years before the Abbottabad raid.

“I think we need to be very cautious that we don’t fall into the colonial quagmire of ‘divide and conquer’ on Rep. Zinke’s apparent nomination,” warns Chief Stan Grier of the Piikani Nation. Grier’s recent commentary on McMorris Rodgers was widely praised by tribal leaders. “Rep. Zinke’s record needs to be viewed in totality, not isolation. His work on the Blackfeet Water Rights Settlement was important, as was his support of federal recognition for the Little Shell Tribe, but much of what he has said about tribal sovereignty relates to the development and access to fossil fuel extraction on tribal lands,” Chief Grier elaborates. Zinke’s record in Congress supports Grier’s assessment. “We need to invest in infrastructure projects like the Keystone pipeline,” says Trump’s Interior pick, while remaining silent on DAPL.

Like Trump, Zinke has been charged with using racial stereotypes, which the President-elect routinely dismisses as “political correctness.” At an address in Helena, the soon-to-be Secretary of the Interior informed a Republican audience that “nowhere” is “the dependence on the government more apparent” than on Indian reservations. “You go back to, you want to feed someone, you need to teach a person how to fish,” was Zinke’s follow-up on the poverty crippling Montana reservations. “In order to jumpstart job growth and economic development [on reservations] we need to get the federal government out of the way,” was how he later qualified his position, a stance contrary to the federal trust responsibility. In 2014, he opposed $344 million in funding for Violence Against Women programs in Indian Country, sought to repeal the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, and supported the budget proposed by Speaker Paul Ryan that would have cut $637 million from Indian Health Services. Congressman Zinke voted for the Native American Energy Act (NAEA), and the Indian Coal Production Tax Credit. Opponents fear NAEA will weaken the National Environmental Policy Act. “This could incentivize energy companies to partner with tribes simply for the benefit of skirting NEPA and profiting from restricted judicial review,” cautions Congressman Raúl Grijalva, an outspoken advocate for tribal rights.

“Zinke consistently votes for the interests of oil and gas companies, which is not surprising since Oasis Petroleum is his largest campaign contributor and the oil and gas industry is his third-largest sector contributor. He has also voted against and attacked the establishment of protective national monuments on public lands,” continues CBD’s Kierán Suckling. Chief Grier’s call for tribal solidarity and examining the ramifications of legislation like NAEA and the Zinke co-sponsored Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act that rolled back National Labor Relations Act regulations on tribal entity businesses is being echoed across Indian Country. “As contemporary tribal leaders we are stepping into the unknown with President-elect Trump,” begins Chairwoman Amber Torres of the Walker River Paiute Tribe. “Tribal unity is imperative. What detrimentally impacts one tribe will ultimately impact all tribes due to consequence and precedent.”

Walker River Paiute Tribal Chairwoman Amber Torres

Chairwoman Torres and Chairwoman Laurie Thom of the neighboring Yerington Paiute Tribe identify the decades-long struggle over the abandoned Anaconda Copper Mine as a major concern under a Trump EPA directed by Scott Pruitt. The mine has contaminated ground and surface waters, and local wells have been poisoned with uranium, arsenic, lead and other toxic chemicals. Both leaders signed the grizzly-tribal unity treaty yesterday, now the most signed treaty in history. “This document and its importance have taken on even greater urgency since the election. Our worries and fears are real,” concludes Chairwoman Torres.

About The Author

Every pick the trumpster has made is yet another nail in the coffin sealing the fate of an America that was never really great, but at least had the potential to get better. Not any more.

Lena Toledo2 years ago

The federally-recognized tribe indeed need to worry about Trump’s Presidency, especially the 30 tribes that supposedly endorsed the female Presidential candidate. Also both the State of North and South Dakota Tribal Chairmen openly endorsed this candidate. Favorable action for our tribes are now on the political table. Added to that is Trump’s pick for Department of Energy one Rick Perry who is a board member on Energy Partners Transfer, owner of Dakota Access pipeline. How’s that for starters. This new administration will force all tribal councils to speak in legal terms, using legal documents, Congressional-enacted laws, etc. that has never been enforced following the passage of P.L. 93-638 in the mid 70s.

Today’s Santa Fe New Mexican has an interesting take on Zinke’s Mixed Bag:

Santa Fean John Horning of the nonprofit WildEarth Guardians opposes the nomination. “Zinke’s pro coal and pro fossil fuel policy advocacy would be a disaster for our nation and our planet,” Horning said.

Zinke supported a resolution co-sponsored by New Mexico Republican Congressman Steve Pearce that would turn over management of at least 200,000 acres of national forest lands in each state to local communities with the intent to thin forests and manage watersheds. The bill “would have handed over management responsibility on up to 4 million acres of national forest to state/local interests,” Horning said. “Zinke favors state management of federal public lands to generate income to the benefit of the state of Montana, and that’s not inconsistent with the value and vision of America’s public lands.”

Zinke recently introduced a bill in Congress to amend federal law to discourage litigation against the Forest Service and BLM related to forest thinning and other land management projects. He also introduced this year a bill to end the BLM moratorium on new federal coal leases and re-establish a committee including representatives from tribes to review regulations of mining.

“It’s great that Congressman Zinke has opposed the sell-off of our nation’s public lands, but the rubber will meet the road when his campaign contributors come asking Interior for permission to drill those lands at the expense of Western communities,” Chris Saeger, executive director of the nonprofit Western Values Project, said in a statement. “Saying you want to protect public lands is easy to do when your seat in Congress is on the line, but it’s a completely different matter when powerful special interests ask to abuse those same lands at bargain basement prices behind closed doors.”

The comment above by Mr. Saeger casts a slightly different but still deeply concerned light on what this probable Cabinet member will bring to the table at Secretary of Interior. Speaking of bargain basement prices behind doors, Zinke will have to make a point to avoid what former US Senator Albert Fall did as Secretary of the Interior in terms of the Tea Pot Dome oil lands leasing scandal that caused the total collapse of the already corrupt Warren G. Harding Administration.

Ann Muga2 years ago

I cannot comment on the litany of charges levied in this editorial, but I can comment on one. I lived and worked in Montana for five years. It was my experience that the Blackfeet community thought little of killing grizzly bears if they crossed reservation lands. In fact, there was a business which placed garbage in a dumpster behind a restaurant which was owned by a Blackfeet and the dumpster was open so that it attracted grizzly bears. Naturally, tourists stopped to see the spectacle. When the season was over it was common to learn of a grizzly being shot by them. So, I concluded that the grizzly bear was not “sacred” to that tribe. The Park Service, on the other hand, did the best it could to discourage visitors from making the grizzly accustomed to people. Once accustomed to humans, the grizzly has to be shot. They are no longer relocated. However, grizzlies were seen from time to time in Park Service neighborhoods with no repercussions.

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